It’s almost finished. The shopping, the wrapping, the cooking, and all the hustle and bustle of activities we do to get ready for Christmas. It’s almost over, except for the memories we have left each year.
Looking back, I never realized what a unique family we were and how differently we celebrated the holiday.
When the babies were little, our family Christmases were a riot. We never knew where we were going to find the tree. One year he was in the baby’s playpen and the next year we found him hanging from the lamp, upside down.
We could never have a pretty tree. We couldn’t even hang icicles because Lacie ate them, and Mitch thought Christmas tree balls were for throwing. But it was our tree and no one seemed to care how it looked as long as there were lots of gifts around it.
It was Christmas 1959 (the year before Mitch was born) that Santa came to our house on Christmas morning for the last time. That was the year I woke up everyone in the house at two in the morning to see what Santa had brought. Jo said that she was going to have to come over to our house on Christmas Eve from now on so we could all get some sleep. Jo had very good connections with Santa. Because of me, Santa had to make two trips a year!
Our family, like most others, had a family Christmas party every year. And we still do. When I was little, and both my grandparents were still alive, we had two Christmas parties. now that life was worth living! One would be at Nanny’s and the other at Mam Maw’s, until she started renting Ward 4 parish barn so we wouldn’t trash his house at Christmas.
Mam Maw was more of a socialite, I guess you could say, than a Nanny, and she didn’t want to have to clean up after us. I remember very few Christmases where we had the party at Mam Maw’s house (probably due to my narcolepsy), but the Ward 4 Barn worked very well.
Mam Maw and Pap Paw’s house had a completely different atmosphere than Nanny’s. Nanny and Paw Paw lived on a farm in the country and Mam Maw and Pap Paw lived in the town of Sulfur, and we were actually allowed into Mam Maw’s house through the front door.
She had a beautiful home, complete with statues of people and cats around her living room and a sleek, shiny black panther that always graced her mantle. (I could never understand why she would be a fan of the WO Boston Panther).
One of her most prized possessions was a statue of a Siamese cat that took pride of place by her fireplace. We all thought he was ugly and called him “Mam Maw’s bloody cat.” After his death, it became a Christmas tradition to pass on the Cursed Cat. However, when it was Lacie’s turn, we never saw Damn Cat again, until last year. She broke it or someone did, but she’s with me for a while. I always wanted the panther, but the only one that happened was that Damn Cat.
Almost everyone in the family would attend our wonderful Christmas parties, even people we hadn’t seen in years and years. And sometimes people we didn’t know at all, but met for the first time.
Christmas 2010, we had a party at my mother’s house. Everyone calls her Big Mama since she started having grandchildren, except me of course. (To me, she’ll always be Jo, and she used to have a Big Daddy, but he died at our 2003 Christmas party we had at my brother’s house.)
We all love Big Daddy very much. He was a rare and special person, something like Keno. (Their names of him were even the same, Acquaintance.) Christmas has never been the same for me since that horrible holiday. There are certain events that not even time can cure… Oh, how I hate death.
Anyway, at the 2010 Christmas party, all the guests in Jo’s “great room” were enjoying my grandson, Cullen, then about four months old. Eventually, it was Jo’s turn to hug him and Mr. Cliff’s friend Ann, whom we had just met, asked her; “What is his name?” Well, Jo looked at the baby and then at Ann, then nervously looked at everyone else in the room (they just offered quizzical looks) before finally saying, “I don’t know!”
As the silence thickened, Jo burst into laughter followed closely by the crowded room. Imagine not knowing the name of her great-granddaughter! As the laughter began to die down, Jo said, “Well, he doesn’t come around very often.” Then the laughter started again.
Miss Ann was determined to get this pretty bundle named. A while later, my niece, Kalee, was holding the baby, walking around showing off her beautiful blue eyes and that dimple on her right cheek. As they passed Miss Ann’s chair, they asked her, “What’s her name?” Kalee looked at Cullen nervously and replied, “I don’t know!” Laughing time again, no one seemed to know my grandson’s name!
But from now on, we’ll certainly know Cullen’s name, in case anyone asks. Cullen and his older brother Brendan, who was four years old, spent Christmas Eve with me, so that his mother (my daughter…umm…uhh…oh yeah, Carrie) could wrap presents and get ready for the Santa. That was 2010, this is 2014/15 and we’re having the party at my new Hackberry House.
In 2011, the party was held on Christmas Eve at Jeffrie’s house. It is amazing that no matter what difficult life paths my relatives have chosen, that warm family bond remains. There was time to talk about the “good old days” and to remember those blessed old ones who are gone from this life. Keno believes that grandparents should never be allowed to die. Me too.
My wonderful grandparents, up in Heaven; Please know how much I miss you. And by now, you know how much you’ve always meant to me. I love you, my wonderful grandparents.
Normally we bring a white elephant present and play that Christmas game where everyone draws a number and then in numerical order each takes a present from under the tree; or he steals a gift from someone that he has to go back to pick up from under the tree.
My sister, Jeffrie, decided that she would be hosting the only Christmas party we were going to have in 2011. As we decided which dish would bring who, I reminded her to include the “White Elephant” information. She said, “We’re not doing the White Elephant thing this year.” “Oh, but we are,” I quickly replied. Miss Jeffrie was unwilling to alter that family tradition!
I can’t imagine why you wanted to skip “The Game” but you got over it. And we opened our gifts with unbridled greed, trading with anyone who was willing and stealing from those who were not. And then we ate (and ate) until our clothes were too tight and we all felt sleepy.
Oh! I almost forget it! The party ended with a projection of footage from our childhood days! Jeffrie had taken all the old eight-millimeter films from our childhood, he had digitized them and put them on discs that he gave to each member of the family.
How wonderful!! What memories, our lives and times. My heart was touched. Wonderful memories revamped in high definition and indelibly replaced in my mental library.
and Lacie? She forgot to bring “That Damn Cat” that year… But she brought it this year and I’ve got it! Or she should say that she had it down to the motions. I’ve had to move three times lately and “That Damn Cat” ended up at my brother’s house.
Be at peace and prosper,
Travis Perkins, author
As told to Oyea Kendali